


Stray Dogs

by CurlicueCal



Series: Packstuck AU [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Demons, F/M, Psychic Wolves, Soul-Bonding, and Dave's life is hard, in which Bec Noir is a very angry wolf puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 07:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurlicueCal/pseuds/CurlicueCal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Jade—you—“ You fluster to a halt, groping for words.  Your spine feathers are really standing on end now, all the way to the nape of your neck where they blend into your hair.  Your skin is goose-bumping, your hand itching for your sword, and the stray scattering of feathers along your shoulders feels prickly.  There is a very tiny chance that what you are doing could feasibly be described as ‘freaking out.’  You try taking in a slow breath.  </p><p>You erupt.  </p><p>“You <i>stole</i> a <i>wolf demon?</i>”</p><p>"He was already stolen!” Jade says defensively, “I just stole him more!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stray Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Psychic Wolves meme. I wanted to write trolls with soul-bonded wolf-dancestors and then backstory happened and then I had to write this first.  
>    
> There's no particular crossover for the wolves in this AU. I'm filching bits and pieces from various sources and making up the rest as I go.

"Don't freak out," is the first thing Jade says to you when she gets back to your campsite. 

You feel the line of little feathers down your spine stand up all at once, fluttery-uncomfortable under your shirt.  She’s not hurt—not bleeding anyway, you’d key right into blood at this point in your cycle, whee, devil-gifts are fun no they are not—but that doesn’t do much to settle your nerves.  She is arriving from completely the wrong direction for her supposed trip into town, you note.  She doesn’t have any of the supplies she went for either, just a single bundle held close to her chest.  Her long dark hair is fluffed out around her head and has crumbles of dead leaves in it.  “Jade.  No.  Jade.  What did you do.” 

“It’s totally fine,” she says, even as she shifts the bundle in her arms.  Her free hand pats at the cloth like she’s trying to reassure it—or herself.  “There’s nothing to worry about, Dave; I doubled-back on my trail a bunch of times and laid some false ones and I took the long route around—“ 

“Jade, what,” you try again, but she rolls right over the top of you. 

“--and anyway I don’t think they even saw me at all so it’s fine.”  In her arms, the bundle… _wriggles_. 

“Jade,” you say more urgently and again get cut off. 

“—right, okay, it wasn’t exactly my best idea but don’t freak out, Dave, I _had_ to, I really did, he was so alone and he was _calling,_ I heard him—“ 

“Jade, so help me if you don’t tell me what I am not freaking out about right now—“ 

She pulls the edge of the jacket back.  “Surprise,” she says weakly.   

You blink at the fluffy mass of black fur this reveals.  For a moment you think, _oh, she brought home a puppy_ , and that’s, okay, yeah, maybe not a great idea given prior history but it’s pretty much par for the course from Jade and you don’t know what she was making such a big deal about— 

\--the half-grown puppy squirms around in Jade’s arms and fixes you with demon-gold eyes.  They gleam out of the black fur like little round coins of malice set in pools of acid green.  A white slice of scar tissue bisects one eyelid, lending the animal a savage cast, but the eye underneath is untouched. You take in the neat points of up-pricked ears, the sleek ruff of fur around the throat.  The sturdy, stream-lined build—still big-pawed and young-creature awkward but already gearing up for some significant size and muscle.  “Jade, that is a wolf.” 

She gives you a big, uncertain, trying-to-be-confident smile, her glasses glinting as her chin ticks up.  “Yep, he sure is, Dave!” 

“A _demon_ wolf.  As in familiar.  As in the kind trolls bond with.” 

“That’s right.” 

“Jade—you—“ You fluster to a halt, groping for words.  Your spine feathers are really standing on end now, all the way to the nape of your neck where they blend into your hair.  Your skin is goose-bumping, your hand itching for your sword, and the stray scattering of feathers along your shoulders feels prickly.  There is a very tiny chance that what you are doing could feasibly be described as ‘freaking out.’  You try taking in a slow breath. 

You erupt.  “You _stole_ a _wolf demon_?” 

“He was already stolen!” Jade says defensively, “I just stole him more!  It’s not like those merchants in that village were his family.” 

“Yes, Jade, because pissing off a bunch of townies is such a tremendous improvement over a pack of feral trolls.  Congrats.  Full points for maximizing our possible range of deaths.  I am full of confidence that this situation will in no way turn around and bite us in the ass.” Your eye drifts to the half-grown cub, grown restive in Jade’s hold.  “Figuratively and literally.” 

Jade looks fierce, bundling her charge closer into her arms.  “He wasn’t _theirs_.” 

“Well, it’s not yours either—go put it _back_.” 

“They had him in a _cage_ , Dave.  In a cage with a chain.  And wards.  So people could gawk and point at the monster.”  The puppy—wolf—thing, struggles in her arms and she leans over it, petting at its head and cooing words you can’t make out under her breath.  The demon cub turns a little snarling muzzle up toward her and those unnatural gold-in-green eyes fixate strangely.  With a huff it stills, all at once.  It’s still staring. 

…yeah, that’s about six million times creepier than it is cute. 

Jade hugs the creature to her, nuzzling into the fur at the top of its head.

Auuuughh.  “Fine.  Okay.  Don’t take it back then.  Just—let it go in the woods or something.  Release it back into the wild and it can go be free and natural and unfettered and shit and we can earn our demon naturalist merit badges and get out of here.  Preferably before someone connects us to the wolf-monster ransacking the countryside.” 

“Dave, don’t be dumb.  I can’t leave him alone; he’s just a baby!” 

Frustration wells over.  “Okay, no.  That is not ‘ _just_ ’ a anything,” you snap.  “Hellhound, demon dog, direwolf, _troll_ -kin, are these ringing any bells, Jade?  Because I can keep going.” 

For a moment Jade stares at you, frozen, green eyes gone wide and wounded behind the lenses of her glasses.  Then she draws herself up, silence transmuting into a sudden column of stormy anger.  “Wow, what do you think, Dave?!  Of _course_ they do!”  Her wrath blows out nearly as fast as it arrived.  Jade puffs out a final angry breath, turning away.  “ _Dumbass_.”

Ah fuck.  “I didn’t mean—“ 

“—well, _don’t_ ,” she says fiercely.  “Just don’t mean anything at all, Dave Strider.”  In the silence that follows, you’re aware of a low, thrumming buzz.  The demon wolf-puppy is growling at you. 

Great. 

You rub up under your shades, pressing your face into your hand.  Through your fingers you watch the tight line of her back, her head bowed and tucked.  “Sorry.”   

Jade hugs her growling wolf cub and scowls off into the surrounding trees. 

You sidle closer.  The little wolf-monster bares its teeth at you from its cradle in Jade’s arms.  “Really sorry.” 

Jade doesn’t look up.  Her voice is strained and small.  Angry.  “I miss Bec.” 

“Yeah, I know.” 

She hides her face in black fur.  “He was a good dog.” 

“Yeah, he was.”  A good dog that was just big enough and smart enough and devoted enough to get stupid, superstitious people whispering.  Telling tales and making up stories.  Wasn’t that Harley girl odd and hadn’t her grandfather been a strange, out-of-town sort and it wasn’t normal, a dog like that.  Not natural.  Not right. 

And she’d been friends with that Strider boy, the one whose brother made a deal with a demon, the devil-touched boy, and it didn’t matter that you’d tried so hard to stay away from her, after. 

They called her a witch and they shot her dog and how do you make that okay?

The wolf cub’s still snarling, lumped up in Jade’s arms, broadcasting a feral, directionless challenge to the world at large for want of a more immediate target. 

For a moment, you empathize.  You kind of want to crawl into Jade’s lap and mantle wings you don’t have and caw and croon out your distress, too. 

God, you’re weird these days. 

You settle for edging still closer and bumping your shoulder against Jade’s.  (The little beast’s growl picks up a notch but whatever, you are like, way bigger than him, you could take him.  Also he can’t reach you from this angle.)  Jade sighs and leans into you.  Forgiven. 

Resting your cheek against the top of her head, you ~~preen~~ nuzzle briefly at the soft, dark silk of her hair, the familiar warm scent of her like gunpowder and growing things and home. 

You really didn’t mean to drag up bad memories.  So are you on edge because it’s that extra feathery time of your cycle or are you on edge because this is a really really dumb idea, this is so stupid, you are both going to wind up dead? 

Wow, check it, you just answered your own question. 

“We are _so_ going to die,” you say, conversationally. 

“Don’t be silly; we are not.” 

“Death, Jade.  Dead.  So much of the deadness.”  You scrub your knuckles over the sore spot on your chest and try to ignore the way your neck-feathers want to bristle.  “What if someone calls a hunter, hm?  And do you have any idea what trolls do to humans that mess with their wolves?” 

Jade gives you a skeptical look. “Do _you_?” 

“No, but I’ll bet it’s significantly more violent than a tea party.  Like, we’re talking blood and screaming and broken things and nobody gets any biscuits at all kind of situation.” 

Jade rolls her eyes.  “Well, gosh, Dave, do you mean the trolls won’t like us?”  

You can’t help but crack a bit of a smile at that.  “Yeah, us and all the other humans I guess.  Aren’t we special snowflakes.”  You bump your shoulder against her again, backing off as the wolf brat targets a surly snap at you.  “Hell, for that matter the other humans don’t like us much either.” 

“That’s because they’re all big ignorant stupidheads,” Jade says.  Her wolf-monster wiggles and she laughs like it’s done something cute, ducking her head over it.  “Yes, that’s right!  Big, big, stinky dummies.” 

The black cub wriggles more insistently, making a bid for the ground. 

Jade hangs on.  “Nope, nuh-uh, not ‘til you stop plotting to eat Dave, buster.”  

“Have I mentioned how awesome I feel about this situation,” you say. 

“Kind of a lot of times, Dave!” Jade moves over to your packs.  She juggles the wolf briefly and then resorts to nudging through the contents with her toes.  “Anyway if any trolls wanted to be pissy about this they should have come and found him sooner.  But they didn’t so I did and they can bite me.” 

“I think that’s the general idea, yeah.” 

Jade ignores you.  “And…I think they killed his pack.  The humans that took him.”  She strokes at the black bundle, and then lifts her eyes to look at you square on.  “He doesn’t remember very well,” she says, “but that’s definitely the impression I’m getting.” 

Oh mother fucking monkey hell.  “Jade, please tell me the demon dog isn’t talking into your head.” 

“Well.  I wouldn’t call it talking, exactly.” 

“ _Jade_.” 

“No really, it’s not!”  She does that fake-confident teeth-flashing thing again and goes back to toeing through your food supplies. “It’s more like…feelings.” 

“Oh, well, okay,” you say, “if he’s just _feeling_ things with your head then that’s completely fine—wait, no, fuck, it totally isn’t, it is the polar opposite of fine, it is freezing in the arctic about to chop off all your toes level of not-fine; oh my god my girlfriend adopted a talking dog that wants to eat me why is this my life?” 

“Dave!” Jade says. “Stop freaking out!” 

“I am not freaking out!” 

“You are totally freaking out.” 

“No, I am not, this is my totally calm and rational face, I wear it all the time, I don’t even own a freaking out face.  I am so calm right now, you don’t even know.” 

Jade gives you a level look.  “Are you sure?” 

“Yes.” 

“Because you are going _really_ poofy, Dave.  Like, all over.” 

“ _Mnnrrgh_ ,” you say, and rub your hands back over your hair, wriggling your shoulders inside your shirt, silently cursing your hapless, demon-riddled life.  You try deep breathing.  Slowly your feathers settle into something approaching calm. 

You cross your arms and slouch, feeling sullen.  “I used to be cool.”

“Fluffy can be cool,” Jade says.

You glare at her flatly.

She meets your gaze with her lips pressed together, eyes wide, attempting a straight face.  It dissolves into giggles and ends on a snort.

You struggle to maintain your _very srs_ disapproving face.

“You’re still my favorite coolkid,” Jade says, warm and sincere, eyes still glittery with the remnants of laughter.  You maybe sort of melt a little.  Jade goes to lean in for a kiss; you sway closer—and the evil demon wolf puppy flashes teeth.  Jade aborts the motion, opting instead to go back to trying to untie a parcel of dried meat without the use of her arms.

“Cockblock,” you tell the puppy. 

Jade snickers. 

“So,” you say, searching for a conversational topic that will make somebody other than you the butt of ridicule.  “The demon puppy is talking to you.  What does the puppy say?” 

“Right now?” Jade says, kicking at the string. 

You decide your food supplies have had more than enough feet in them and scootch past her to unfasten the knot. 

“…mostly variations on ‘mine mine mine’ and ‘bite bite bite.’  But not really in words.  He’s kind of incoherent.”  Jade’s brow knits, and she gets her introspective problem-face on.  “I don’t know if that’s normal or I’m picking him up poorly because I’m human or maybe he can’t talk very well?  Socialization is very important in young animals.” 

“I think he communicates pretty clearly, no psychic-demon-voodoo needed.  Like right now he’s saying he wants to eat my face.”

“He’s just not used to you,” Jade says.  “You need to let him sniff your fingers.” 

“Uh huh, no.  I like my fingers,” you tell her.  “I’m very attached to them.  I’ve had them all my life.” 

“He’s not going to eat your fingers, jeez.  And anyway I’m going to feed him first,” she adds, which is a really un-reassuring type of afterthought.  Jade tucks the black cub under one arm, cocking out her hip and pinning him against her side.  Squatting, she sorts quickly through the dried meats.  “You really can’t hear him?” 

“Nope.  Transmission is coming in at zero percent.  This brain is a certified demon-free zone.  I am hearing no voices in my head.  Guess how sad that makes me.” 

“Huh,” Jade says.  “Here, sweetie, try this.” This latter appears to be directed to the wolf.  “It’s venison.  You look old enough to manage it.” 

The cub sniffs at the dark strip of meat and recoils slightly, upper lip curling back over white teeth.  Gold eyes narrow. 

“It’s just dried,” Jade tells him, nudging the strip of venison in the cub’s face again.  She appears utterly unconcerned by the half-hearted snap of displeasure it directs at her hand.  “And there’s salt to preserve it, but this one doesn’t have any other seasoning.  It’ll be a little tough but we don’t have anything fresh right now. Here you go, good boy, eat up.” 

The little demon wolf does the creepy stare thing again, gold-in-green eyes focused up at her with the kind of intent more typically reserved for religious visions.  

“C’mon now, who’s a hungry boy?  Go on.”  Jade waggles the jerky strip and the cub’s attention transfers back to the offered food.   It crinkles its muzzle and noses the meat again, black ears flattened out to either side of its head.  Every line broadcasts a sort of grumpy bewilderment, like it has no idea how it has gotten to this point in the situation and also doesn’t know how to refuse.  Wow, it turns out Jade’s cheerfully affectionate brand of bullying crosses species lines.  Who knew?

“Can he understand you?” you ask. 

“I don’t know,” Jade says, sounding distracted.  “A little, maybe?  Not the words, but I when I concentrate and picture things I think there’s a—connection.  He knew not to bite me and to be quiet while I was getting him away.  Well, he did still bite me but only the one time.  And it wasn’t very hard.” 

Your stomach does and uncomfortable nervous clench as she talks but your conniption-throwing quota is all used up today.  You drum your fingers once on your arm and decide to seek small comfort in the fact that Jade only brought home a _baby_ demon. 

The cub makes a few more distrustful trials of the strip of jerky and then settles in to gnawing on it.  Jade lets him down to the ground, where he hoards his prize possessively at her feet, still chewing. 

She gives the black head a final pat.  “His name is, uh—“ Jade pauses, face screwing up in thought, and then tries slowly, like she’s sounding something out, “’Paws slip-sliding in blood in the dark; black black moonless cold night; fangs and claws and the whole world is your enemy.’”  Her nose crinkles, exactly like the wolf cub’s. “…or something like that.” 

“…adorable.”  Your voice is very dry.

“I’m thinking of calling him Noir!” Jade says brightly. 

“Or how about ‘Hellbeast’?”

She blows right past this suggestion. “He really does need a nickname.  The way his name sounds in my head doesn’t really translate.  It’s more like a sense-memory.  Or a smell?  With feelings?” 

 “Smells have feelings?”

“These ones do.”

At Jade’s feet, the wolf cub finishes off the last of the venison and sits up, licking its muzzle.  It looks around the clearing, pointed ears flicking alertly, eyes narrow.  Eeling to its feet, the half-grown cub prowls into the encampment, pausing to sniff at Jade’s pack, a tree, your bedroll, the ashes of last night’s fire, your bedroll again.

“Does Noir sound too pretentious?” Jade asks, watching the cub slip from shadow to shadow.  “Maybe I should pick something friendlier.  Hrm…night, cold, blood, black.  Blackjack?”

“A small concealed weapon for dispensing surprise head trauma.”  You nod.  “Appropriate.”

“Ugh, Dave.  I meant the card game!  I said _friendly_.”

“No, no,” you assure her, straight-faced. “This could work.  It’s very personable.  It’s like a warning label so when the inevitable blood and mayhem begins nobody can hold us responsible.  I like it.”

Jade twists her lips and gives you a repressing stare.  “I’m picking something else.”

“Killjoy.”

The little wolf-demon is looking at you.  You turn to meet that tickling pressure of eyes, and find it has moved to flank you, gold eyes glinting from the limited concealment of some shrubbery.  For just a second, you think they glow, a flash of acid green.  The half-grown cub meets your gaze, unblinking, and then starts slinking sideways, circling around towards your blindspot.

You turn in place to keep it in sight, narrowing your eyes behind your shades.

Jade huffs at both of you and snags the cub, hauling it back to a place by her feet.  “You two cut that out.”

“Um, excuse me, I am the innocent bystander here.  Your demon cub is hunting me.”

“He’s not hunting you,” Jade says, as the cub tries to wind past her feet.  “He’s just… stalking you a little.”

“Are you arguing via thesaurus now.  Is that what’s happening, Jade?”

“I _mean_ he’s not out to kill you or anything, sheesh.  Like you couldn’t handle one little baby wolf.  Quit that,” she adds, to the wolf, which settles back reluctantly on its haunches.

“I’ll have you know I am very delicate of spirit.  Like a precious spun glass flower.  As my girlfriend you are honor bound to protect my fragile maiden self and not feed me to your demon.”

“I promise I won’t let you get eaten,” Jade says.

“It would ruin my figure,” you tell her solemnly.  “I want to stay pretty for you.”

Jade rolls her eyes, but grins anyway.  “You’re very pretty, Dave.  The prettiest.”  Then she looks down and says “whoops!” and suddenly there’s a small black blur slipping past her and lunging at your ankles.

You don’t even think, you just jump, straight up.

Jade recaptures her demon puppy.  She looks up at you.  The fuzzy demon in her arms also looks up at you.  Its little yellow eyes are calculating.  “Heh.  Sorry?” Jade says.

You make a frowny-face down at her, from where you are perched like a lunatic ten feet up on an overhanging tree limb.  Your pulse races in your ears.  “Jade.  Girlfriend fail.”  Damn it, you hate when you pull this kind of shit without meaning to.  The speed feels utterly natural…and it’s the kind of slip that’s going to get you set upon by hunters someday.  You keep your voice bland. “I trusted you so faithfully.  That wasn’t even two minutes.  Where is my knight, Jade?  Why must you break my heart?”

“I’m sorry!” she says again.  “He really isn’t trying to eat you, I swear.  He’s just confused.  You smell like a bird.”

Not… really what you want to hear right this moment.  You adjust your crouched stance on the branch, finger pads light on the bark.  “Well that’s just rude.  I hardly have any feathers at all.”  Just enough to mark you out as demon-touched and make you really unpopular at parties.  “In fact, the only thing I have noticeably more of than a regular guy is my mad ridiculous levels of swag.”

 “Says the guy who just got treed by a puppy.” 

“A _demon_ puppy.” 

Jade just grins, her mischievous, buck-toothed smile gleaming up at you from between the pointed black ears of the demon cub in her arms.  “Okay, Dave.  We totally believe you.”

 _‘We_.’  She says it completely casually like it’s not even a question in her head anymore.  Like it’s settled.

Your stomach does that anxious clench again.  “Jade.  You know you can’t really keep him.  Right?” When she doesn’t respond immediately, when she just goes still and unhappy and tense, you carry right on like you can’t see it.  “Because that would be stupid and dangerous in about seventeen dozen different ways and I know you’re way too smart a girl to be that dumb; you’ve basically got brains stacking up in junk drawers and coat closets and being dealt out of shady back alleys.  You’ll figure something else out.  We can figure this out.”  You’re talking but you can seethe refusal budding in her eyes and you rush to pile on more words like you could build a barricade out of them, hold back the inevitable.  “We could take him somewhere, further north maybe where there’s less people.  Find some trolls even.  It doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

“I _can’t_ ,” she says.  Her fingers flex in dark fur. 

Your own fingers clench helplessly, nails tearing out bark in strips.  You drop from your branch, landing almost silently in front of her, ignoring the quick there-and-gone flash of teeth from the wolf cub.  Protective.  Or maybe just scared and angry with it.  Or both, and wow do you know that feeling.  “Jade.”  You’re still kneeling in the dirt, and you can’t quite bring yourself to look her in the face, not and still get past this suffocating pressure in your chest, these words that cling in your throat and choke you.  “If something happened to you--”

 “I know.  I know.  But I-- _can’t_.” Her eyes squinch closed, her arms clenching.  The demon cub snarls at you, low and uncertain, but he doesn’t fight the tight grip of Jade’s arms.  “Dave.  He’s all sharp and jagged and hurt inside but he feels like he’s _mine_.  Like home.  Like _family_.”  She opens her eyes, and they’re the kind of reckless, live-forest green that you think sometimes you could live inside, that you think could kill you.  “I _can’t_ leave him alone.  I won’t.”

And you believe her.  It’s the kind of truth that could carve diamonds and it’s so utterly Jade you can’t even claim to be surprised.  You’re still batshit terrified, but it’s like the fear when you jump from a height: a dizzy vertigo, a headrush, and an inevitable surrender to gravity.  The conclusion was foregone before you started.  Like you could ever stop Jade from falling in love with stupid outcast strays that are only going to bring her trouble.

She fell in love with you, didn’t she?

 “I’m sorry,” Jade says.  “I know it’s not what you want.  I know this is going to cause problems.”  She sounds increasingly miserable.  “But I want to be straight with you because you deserve to know that ahead of time.  To decide for yourself.  It’s going to be hard and I know it might be too much.  I’ll understand if you don’t want to—“

“—hey, wow, whoa, stop the horse,” you say, rising rapidly to your feet to stem the tide of words.  “Everybody off the ride.  You have exceeded your stupid ideas quotient for the day, missy.”  Jade opens her mouth and you cross your arms, shaking your head and pressing your lips out in mock-severity.  “You only get one per day and you already used yours.  You’ll just have to keep the demon.  This other crazy talk is much too late to even get on the table.”

“Dave!”  Jade’s sort of laughing and frowning at the same time.  “I’m serious.  This is a major issue and you need to really think about it.”

“Nope, overruled.  You are in serious violation of the ridicu-nanity statutes, young lady.  If you keep this up I’ll probably have to assign you a second demon just to balance things out.”

Jade’s mouth twists, still unable to settle on an emotion between pleasure and protective disapproval.  “Really?”

It’s a dumb question so you pretend to miss her point.  “Nah, demons are hard to find.  You’ll probably just wind up saddled with some brainless feathery asshole.”

Jade’s eyes are unrelenting.  “Dave.  Are you really sure?”

You shift your shoulders, uncomfortably warm under the intensity of that stare.  Two stares, actually.  The demon cub hasn’t looked away from you once.  “Yeah.”  If you keep talking you’re going to say something ridiculously uncool— _anything you want, Jade; whatever you need.  Just don’t leave me, stay with me, don’t let me get you hurt._ “We strays have to stick together,” you say instead.  “Right?”

Her smile could light stars.  She darts in toward you impulsively, her free hand sliding behind your neck.  You get just the brush of warm lips against yours before the proverbial demon elephant in the room tries to take a chunk out of your arm.

Jade jerks away, flushed.  “Sorry!  Sorry.” She frowns down at the demon cub. “You cut that out right now, mister.  Dave isn’t trying to hurt me and you aren’t going to hurt him.  Sorry,” she says again, to you.

“Eh,” you say, eyeing the demon.  Then you buckle on your grown up pants and brace yourself.  “Hang on.  I got this.”  With a flourish, you offer your fingers to the wolf cub, extending them within reach of those small sharp teeth in the universally-recognized gesture of ‘hello, furred creature, please sniff my fingers and be my friend.’  In an undertone you add, “Your hors d'oeuvres, sir.”

Jade bites her lip.

The wolf cub stares from your fingers to you with wary hostility.  His limbs tense and coil in Jade’s arms, and he tilts his head to eye you narrowly through his scarred right eye, as if suspecting a trap.  From this close you can see where the fur of his ruff is worn and matted, a ring of scabs and welts circling his neck under the dark fur.

You hold your hand steady, gentling the rest of your posture, trying to look relaxed and casual.

Jade watches quietly, her fingers stroking in minute patterns, maybe sending soothing mental communications in the demon cub’s direction or maybe just waiting him out.

After a drawn out pause, the cub dips his head slightly, stretching out his neck in a wary, twitchy series of movements.  His lips curl back briefly, showing teeth.  You wait.  He sniffs your fingertips.  The cub snorts out a huffy breath, then withdraws to go back to staring out you.

“Good boy!” Jade says and beams at you both impartially.

The cub looks aggrieved and baffled to find his tail tapping in response to the praise but you’re no fool.  You lean in and steal a proper kiss.  It’s brief but perfect; warm soft skin sliding against yours, the flick of tongues, the taste of laughter on her lips. 

And when wolf fangs snap inevitably shut on the place where your fingers used to be you’ve already flashed around out of reach.  Damn you’re good.

You smirk at the wolf cub from the spot you are now occupying behind Jade’s shoulder and raise a lazy, tolerant eyebrow over your shades.  “Going to have to be faster than that, fuzzface.”

“Oh my god,” Jade says, hanging onto the furious demon cub and twisting to frown at you.  “Dave, I forbid you to start a pissing contest with the puppy.”

You bat your eyes behind your shades.  “Would I do that?”

Jade does not appear impressed by your lily-white innocence.  “Yes.  Yes, you totally would.”

“You should call him Slick,” you say, cheerfully ignoring her.  You lean on her shoulder and wiggle your fingers into reach of the cub.

“Quit that.”  Jade pauses.  “Slick, huh?”  She looks at you more thoughtfully, and then down at the black cub in her arms.  The wolf demon is eyeing you and your fingers with his own thoughtful look.  It might be the kind of thought that portends an acknowledgement that further aggression is futile but you’re pretty sure he’s just deciding whether to wait to strike when you’re surprised or when you’re _really_ surprised.

“Sure.  Because he’s a damn sneaky little asshole.”  Before Jade can register an objection, you add, “I mean that in the nicest way.”

“Hm,” Jade says, with the kind of deep suspicion that wounds you, really it does.  “Okay, then.  Slick.”  Jade pats at the furred head a moment and the wolf cub stops snarling at your fingers to stare at her again.  The air is charged with a silent communication you’re not privy to, but you can recognize a low-burning, bewildered adoration when you see it strange gold eyes.  Jade does that to people.

For just second, you’re on the outside of something that’s only between them and your chest—twinges.

Then Jade slants a look back over her shoulder, eyeing you narrowly. “If this turns out to be a toilet joke I’m telling Slick to eat you.”

You grin.  “Wow, harsh.  You haven’t even had your demon minion for a day and you’ve already begun a reign of terror.”

“Shut up,” Jade says, shoving you with her shoulder, and you glomp onto her from behind, ruffling her hair until she shrieks with laughter and elbows her way loose to try to steal your shades.

Slick sinks sharp puppy teeth into your thumb.

It turns out to be survivable.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was tragically short on trolls and psychic wolves. Next time!  
> Thanks so much for reading; comments would be very much appreciated.


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